MARRAKECH, Morocco — A massive explosion tore through a tourist cafe in the bustling heart of Marrakech’s old quarter Thursday, killing at least 11 foreigners and three Moroccans in the country’s deadliest attack in eight years.
At least 23 people were wounded in the blast a few minutes before noon in Djemma el-Fna square, one of the top attractions in a country that depends heavily on tourism, Moroccan Interior Minister Taib Chergaoui said.
Government spokesman Khalid Naciri said it was too soon to lay blame for what he called a terrorist attack, but he noted that Morocco regularly dismantles cells linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and says it has disrupted several plots.
At least eight French citizens were being treated at Marrakech’s main Tofail Hospital, along with one Canadian, a British citizen and three Moroccans, emergency- room chief Hicham Nejmi said. Others were being treated at a military hospital and a handful in private clinics.
April marks the start of Morocco’s tourist season, when visitors gather to watch snake charmers, storytellers, jugglers and local musicians, filling the cafes that ring the edges of the iconic square on the route to the city’s major open-air souk, or market.
“There was a huge bang, and lots of smoke went up. There was debris raining down from the sky,” honeymooner Andy Birnie, who lives in north London, said by telephone. “Hundreds of people were running in panic.”
The explosion blew much of the facade off the two-story terracotta-colored Argana cafe, leaving awnings dangling. Panicked passers-by dragged away bodies and tried to put out flames with fire extinguishers, witnesses said.
“I believe the injured were mostly tourists, judging by what they were wearing,” Alexandre Carvalho, 34, of southern Portugal, said by telephone.
This former French colony has enjoyed relative stability and political plurality compared with some of its neighbors, but King Mohamed VI holds the final say in all policy, and the country’s largest Islamist movement is banned from politics.
The king has pledged constitutional reforms in response to several largely peaceful protests over the past two months that were inspired by popular uprisings that pushed out autocrats in nearby Tunisia and Egypt.
Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa stages regular attacks and kidnappings in neighboring Algeria. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is holding four Frenchmen hostage after kidnapping them in Niger last year and recently released new images and audio recordings of their voices.
Morocco, however, has been mostly peaceful since it was hit by five simultaneous terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 that killed 33 people. A dozen bombers linked to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a local militant group, also have been implicated in the deadly transit attacks in Madrid in March 2004.
